Melissa
by sdbubbles
Summary: She turns up out of the blue, doubled over in agony and confusing every doctor on AAU. But why did she move to England six years ago? And what does she have to do with Hanssen? They'll find they've been lied to for years, and they're not the only ones.
1. Understood

**A/N: OK, I know...**_**another**_** story. But this one wouldn't leave me alone, I'm afraid. I'm not quite sure how long I intend it to be either. All I have planned is that not everything Hanssen was told as a child was entirely true...but that's all you're getting to know for now :P**

**The first pieces of Swedish are Melissa saying, "Please, help me!" and Hanssen saying, "Calm down." After that, whatever is in italics is them speaking Swedish.**

**Sarah x**

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><p>The woman yelled, screamed in agony, again. She was lying on a bed on AAU, doubled over in pain. Only no-one could understand her. Chrissie attempted desperately to administer her painkillers, but she always threw Chrissie's hand away from her, as if she did not want her to give her any drugs. She begged in a language the doctors and nurses could not understand. "It is not Ukrainian or Russian," Frieda sighed after being sent to check by Sacha. "Her name is Melissa, I think."<p>

"This is getting us nowhere," Sacha groaned. "She doesn't speak a word of English." The glanced over at her, wondering where she was from, why she was in this unfamiliar country, what had brought her here. She looked about thirty-seven or thirty-eight, with almost-black, very curly hair and eyes that were an odd, extremely dark, shade of blue-green.

"Snälla, hjälp mig!" she screamed. Luc's head snapped up at this. He knew that phrase, from a holiday, when a woman had been about to give birth on the street.

"Get Mr. Hanssen," Luc told Frieda urgently. She obliged and phoned up to the Director of Surgery, telling him he was needed on AAU, immediately. It was only a mere matter of a couple of minutes before he was on the ward and, as Luc had expected, his attention was turned almost instantly on the screaming woman.

"Lugna ner dig," he said soothingly. He restrained her while Chrissie injected her with a painkiller. Melissa slowly began to stop shouting as her pain was eased somewhat.

Chrissie then turned on Luc. "Swedish? How did you know?" she demanded of him.

"I once heard a woman screaming in the middle of Stockholm," Luc answered. "Turned out she had gone into labour." Hanssen smiled quietly to himself. He asked the woman her name, wondering why she appeared to him as familiar, even if extremely vaguely. Perhaps it was simply the use of the Swedish language.

"Melissa Nilsson," she said extremely quietly, as if afraid to speak. He spoke again in Swedish to her, the equivalent of, "_I'm the Director of Surgery at Holby._" She gave him an odd look. She seemed to shroud away from him slightly, almost instinctively. "_Now, can you tell me exactly what is hurting so badly?_"

She regarded him with guarded eyes, being very careful about this man she had just encountered. There was something about him that frightened her, not least that he had immediately spoke to her in her native language. "_My chest, it's agony,_" she finally revealed to him. He took a listen as she continued to glare at him, trying to figure out why he intimidated her. No man, not her husband, her uncle or, when she was very small, her father and brother, had ever got anywhere by trying to make her feel uncomfortable. But this doctor hadn't even told her his name, only his title. Was she found most unnerving was that there were things about him that were familiar. The way he held himself, his extreme composure and, most of all, his dark eyes...it was all so well-known to her.

Hanssen turned to Chrissie and told her, "Get her transferred to Darwin, please. The problem seems to be an aortic stenosis, so have Mr. Hope on standby to see to her." She nodded and went to phone up to Darwin. In the meantime, Henrik turned back to the patient. "_Now, I know you're in pain, but do you speak any English?_" he asked her.

She took a breath and replied, "Yes." She paused and thought about how to describe how she had forgotten her second language. "I cannot remember it well when I am in pain or I am very distracted. I still have not mastered that yet," she smiled at him. It was an uneasy smile; she was still cautious of him, still trying to place his features and personality into her memory.

"Thank you," he answered politely. "That will make my staff's job easier. It's unfortunate that I seem to be the only member of staff here who can speak Swedish. Though, Mr. Hemingway seems to recognise it, even if he isn't able to speak in the language," he added. "You are going to be taken up to Darwin Ward, which is our cardiothoracic ward here. I assure you that Mr. Hope, Miss Naylor and that other staff up there will take excellent care of you."

"Are you from Sweden?" she asked suddenly.

"I am," he confirmed. "I was educated here since I was nine years old. I only ever went back to Stockholm for the holidays while I was at school," he said. "Are you here on holiday, or have you moved here?" he enquired politely, making conversation to distract her from the worry of her pain and ill-health.

"I moved here six years ago, with my husband and my oldest daughter, Evelina. Then, four years ago, Siri, my youngest was born here. For some reason, I still have not managed to get the language thing right," she sighed.

A porter turned up to take Melissa away to Darwin, and Hanssen decided he would go with her, even if just to help Elliot with her accent. The only reason Hanssen fully understood her was because he was completely used to hearing others speak English in such a heavy accent. And he felt a strange need to protect her, not that he would let on to anyone about that. She was familiar to him, her unusual eyes in particular struck a cord with him. It brought back memories of a little girl of around four, running around the living room at Christmas, just before his, their, mother died.

He shook that idea from his head. That was near enough impossible; he had last heard from his sister when he was eleven years old, before his father cut off all contact with Henrik and Melissa's aunt and uncle, and therefore Melissa herself. He insisted that Melissa was better off not knowing her father, and Henrik couldn't really disagree with him. He was always an irrational man, with an addiction problem, with an apparent inability to take over the care of his little girl when his wife died, even if he would not lay a finger on his children. Henrik's aunt had allowed him to remain with his father, because he spent most of his time in England and he was old enough to look after himself when she finally put her foot down. And her name being Melissa, that same name as his baby sister's, was a mere coincidence...it was a fairly common name in Sweden.

So, as she was wheeled onto Darwin, Melissa paid little attention to Henrik's look of reminiscence. She was here to get better and then go home to her husband and her children...but she could not shake the feeling of knowing him. And she knew his eyes...it was his eyes that made her wonder. Wasn't this why she came to England in the first place?

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><p><strong>Hope it was alright!<strong>

**Please leave a review and tell me what you think!**

**Sarah x**


	2. To Kill A Mockingbird

**A/N: My laptop died :( Good news, it came back to life! It has a bad habit of doing that. It just stops working then decides it wants to be used again. Anyways, that would be the reason for the short delay on this chapter, and any other things I'm working on. That, and I have prelims in a week.**

**Sarah x**

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><p>It played on his mind as he sat in his office, debating whether to go and watch Elliot and Jac operate. He often wondered how things would be if his mother had not died when she did. He might know his little sister. His dad might not have drank himself to death. He might not be so <em>alone<em> right now.

He sincerely doubted that Melissa Nilsson had any connection to him, but still he wanted to protect her. He couldn't pin it down, but there was something that he knew about her. Something that was hauntingly familiar. He could not push away the memories of the lovely little girl he spent four years with before their aunt took her away. Her curls were very nearly black, but not quite, and they were always in a tangled mess. She was five years younger than him, and he had adored her. They, for some unknown reason, had never squabbled, never fallen out, like most brothers and sisters did.

He got up and let himself drift to Darwin One, where Jac and Elliot were operating on Melissa. Jac noticed his presence, and asked, "Can we help you, Mr. Hanssen?"

"No," he replied politely. "I am merely here to observe. Do carry on," he added. Jac gave him a strange look and returned to the task at hand. She noticed how he was with this patient, and how he watched her, how he was careful in what he said to and about her. That was why she wasn't surprised when, five minutes later, he upped and left them to it.

Hanssen stalked the corridor along to Darwin ward, asking a nurse for Melissa's medical notes. He read through them slowly. It was a very short file; she hadn't had many health problems. Records from her two pregnancies, one in English, the other in Swedish with a translation attached. The date of birth caught his eye eventually, after ignoring it till near the end of his reading. He was forty-two, though she only looked about thirty-eight at the most...she was five years younger than him. Born on October 19th 1969. In Stockholm. He returned the file to the nurse who gave it to him, thanking her, before walking off at a pace that was fast even by his standards.

Was this even possible? What were the odds that his sister could resurface three and a half decades after they had been forced to cut all contact with each other? It sent his mind spinning while he moved in auto-pilot to his office. He snapped out of it when he collided with someone. He looked down and found Sahira picking up her files. She stood at her full height and narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you alright?" she asked. He did not reply; his mind was still on Melissa...he was thinking about her third birthday, how they had spent the day out...went to see a movie. He remembered the date on the ticket. October 19th, 1972.

This was too odd to be a coincidence. There was no way it could be a strange coincidence that a woman, exactly the same age as she would have been, born in the same city on the same day, with the same nearly-black curly hair and the deep, dark bluish-green eyes, had turned up here.

"Earth calling Henrik," Sahira said, waving a hand in front of his face. What the hell was wrong with him?

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," he brushed off her concern without a second thought. It was more out of habit than anything else that he did that. He wondered how he ought to proceed; there was no way he could be totally sure, and he was not going to say anything until he was. Unless he could manipulate her into discussing her past, and if their stories matched, it was no coincidence. He knew it was wrong, but what else could he do?

It was with a scheming mind that he walked back to his office. He felt guilty for actually planning this, but he was desperate now. The very thought that he could possibly have Melissa back was so incredibly appealing to him. He wanted the little girl with the messy hair that hung down her back, who loved to hear him read his book aloud to her, who clung to his waist at night when the wind screamed outside.

Of course, she was no little girl anymore; she was a woman, with a husband and two daughters named Evelina and Siri. But he was getting ahead of himself. He could be mistaken, after all. The thing was, he never believed in coincidence. He never believed in something that happened by mere chance. Even as a child, he had demanded a reasonable explanation for everything. That was both a blessing and a curse, as he soon found out when his parents started having hushed conversations and his mother started getting sick.

He sat in his office trying to concentrate on his work, but he finally gave in when he saw that it was ten o'clock at night and he was getting nowhere. He got out of his chair and decided to pay a visit to Darwin. Sahira was alone on a night shift, which she absolutely despised doing, and he was sure she would appreciate the presence of his calm exterior to put her mind at ease. She always got so uptight while on night shift. It was something he might never understand.

When he entered the ward, the first thing he noticed was the Melissa was reading a book, one that he had more times that he cared to count when he was a child. _To Kill A Mockingbird_. He thought she would be reading an English copy, but he saw that the title was in Swedish. He had given his copy to Melissa when they parted, and bought another one for himself a couple of years later, only it was an English version.

He sat next to her, and she looked up, closing the book. "I never did say thank you for helping me, for speaking in Swedish to me," she told him. "If you had not came, I do not know what would have happened."

"It's Mr. Hemingway you should thank," he replied with a smile. "It was he who recognised the language and brought me down." He picked up the book and asked her, "May I?"

"Of course," she answered.

He flicked through the pages from the back, remembering how he would read it ought to his little sister when she made him share his bed with her when the wind howled outside. She was terrified of that noise, though he never figured out why. "I remember I had a copy of this as a child. Identical, in fact."

"I have had that for many years," she said fondly. "My brother gave it to me." Hanssen momentarily froze before regaining his composure. That was not proof, not at all. He continued to turn that pages, reading lines to himself while he let himself revel in those memories. They were silent for a while. She just let him think abut whatever he chose to think of, not interrupting him.

Henrik thought his heart stopped when he reached the inside of the front cover. _She has my book,_ he thought to himself. He glanced at her, not believing his eyes. She didn't know his name, so how was she to know that she was in possession of his book? He didn't believe his eyes and so double checked. He read it over and over again, making sure he wasn't imagining it. He could remember writing that; his mother wouldn't let him take it to school unless he did...it was two very simple words, and yet they complicated everything. Written on the inside of the front cover of the book was: _Henrik Hanssen._

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><p><strong>Hope it was OK!<strong>

**Please leave a review, tell me what you think!**

**Sarah x**


	3. Encouragement

**A/N: Again, sorry for the little delay. Prelims means revision, which takes up so much time :(**

**Sarah x**

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><p>Henrik sat at his desk in his office, with his head in his hands. He was in total and utter shock; he never actually expected his suspicions to have any basis to them. He had honestly expected that the appearance of a Swedish woman had simply reminded him of his little sister. He never could have believed that she <em>was<em> his little sister.

There was little doubt that she was his sister now. She had, after all, been in possession of the book he gave Melissa more than thirty years ago. It had _his_ name on the cover, and he vividly remembered both writing it there, and the argument with his mother that made him write in his book.

He just sat there, staring at the air around him. How could it be that she suddenly appeared on the wards of his hospital, with a life-threatening conditions that required the attention of his cardiac surgeons? And why was she even in this country? Had she come here in search of him? Had something happened back home that meant she could not stay there? Or had she simply moved here because she felt she would prefer it? But right now, none of that really mattered. What mattered was that his sister was here, with him, within his reach, where he could protect her.

He started when his door opened and Jac entered. In her hand was a book, one that he recognised. It was Melissa's, and he could only assume from the look on her face that she had seen the front cover of it. "Melissa Nilsson dropped this earlier, and I picked it up for her. Your name is on the inside front cover. Care to explain?" she suggested, placing the book on his desk. He looked at it, wondering how to reply.

"How do you know that it is _my_ name?" he asked her. "She is Swedish, and I'm sure I am not the only person in the country named Henrik Hanssen," he pointed out, praying that she would take that explanation.

"Mm-mm...so who is she? Friend? Sister? Wife?" she added, knowing that that idea was not far short of ridiculous. Even Hanssen gave a smile when she suggested that he could be married. "OK, so she's not your wife. But you _do_ look kind of similar. And your name is in her book," she reiterated to him, not quite sure if he understood what she was saying. He looked a little worried, not to mention guarded and shocked.

He sighed and said to her, "Don't you have a ward to run?"

She leaned across his desk, staring at his face. "I don't care what's going on, but Melissa clearly doesn't know what you seem to, otherwise she would look the same as you right about now. You have to tell her," she told him. She stood back up and saw the look on his face. Maybe it would be better if he told someone. This seemed to be something to do with his past and it could affect his future if he made the wrong decision. "Is this some kind of family drama?" she asked him gently. "Because, believe me, I've had my fair share, and I know how much they can hurt."

He looked at her, very surprised that she had shared a little bit of her past to try and get him to tell her what was going on. She picked up his, Melissa's book; it wasn't his anymore. "It's in Swedish, isn't it?" She turned the front cover, showing him his own name there. He turned his head away. He didn't need to see that again. He knew what it meant. It was beginning to occur to him that he had been lied to, not so long ago.

A year ago, not long after he moved to Holby, he had wrote his aunt a letter. He had asked her what happened to Melissa. She had replied, telling him that Melissa had got married, lived in Stockholm with her daughter. One daughter, not two. Either she had stopped contacting her, or she was lying to him.

"Mr. Hanssen, with all due respect, this isn't just about you. It's about Melissa as well. She can tell you're not telling her something; you didn't even tell her your name." He looked down at the book she had put back on his desk. She was right, of course. This was about Melissa and her family. He didn't want to send her mind spinning like his was, but he couldn't bear to see her go without her knowing who she was.

Jac pressed the book into his chest. He caught it, feeling her cold hands against his. Since when did Jac Naylor actually give a damn? "You give her that back, and explain what is going on," she ordered. She looked into his eyes and was shocked to find fear there. He was scared of telling anyone, especially Melissa.

He took the book from her hands, and looked at his name where he wrote it all those years ago. Touching the mark lightly, he sighed deeply. He got up, and Jac followed him to Darwin, where he stood at the empty nurses' station and stared at Melissa sleeping.

"She's my sister," he confessed after a long pause. Saying it aloud made it real, made it hit him like a ton of bricks. He felt the tears sting his eyes. He hadn't cried in many, many years, but this was overwhelming. This was unbelievable. In fact, if he didn't know that was his book, then he wouldn't believe it at all. "She's my sister," he repeated, his hands shaking.

Why did he just tell Jac that he had found his little sister? But he already knew the answer. It was because she could be trusted to keep it to herself. She would not tell anyone. He knew there were things in her past that made her so cold, so secretive and driven, and he knew she would never hurt him by spreading this around the hospital. If she wanted to hurt him, she would do so on her own terms, without the aid of his unfortunate childhood.

"Then go and be with her. Go and hold her hand. Go and be a proper brother to her," she told him gently. She lightly pushed him into Melissa's room. He looked back at Jac with uncertainty, and she glared at him to sit down. She knew, had she not been hurt and angry with her mother, had she wanted no part of her mother, she would have wanted her sister to know her. She watched as he sat in the chair gently took hold of his sister's hand.

He returned his gaze briefly to Jac, and she gave him a tiny, encouraging smile, knowing what it must be like, having known the shock of stumbling across a sibling like that. She saw the reluctance in his features, and understood the fear of getting hurt. She didn't want him to give in to that fear, not like she did. And, though she wouldn't let him know it, she would do her best to keep this from harming him.

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><p><strong>Hope it was alright!<strong>

**Please review and tell me what you thought!**

**Sarah x**


	4. Be Brave

**A/N: I am VERY sorry for not updating sooner. Life didn't go crazy. It went _insane_. And I only just got a half-decent internet connection for the first time since March. Lots of insanity began around November, and it took it's toll. Drastically. So I moved a hundred miles away from the problem.**

**Anyway, hope you enjoy this after such an inexcusable delay!**

**Sarah x**

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><p>Henrik watched the woman he now knew to be his little sister. She hadn't changed much in all those years. There was still a childish quality about her features, and she definitely didn't show her forty-two years. As she slept, her dark hair became messier, gathering around her face and brushing her lips. He had sat there for over an hour, just watching her, amazed at how little her face had changed.<p>

He looked up only when the door opened and Jac walked in with a cup of coffee and a sandwich. She handed them to him, saying nothing. She realised that he would not leave Melissa while she slept, even if it meant going hungry and falling asleep there. "Thank you," he said sincerely, taking the caffeine and the food from her small hands.

Much to Hanssen's surprise, Jac pulled a chair up and sat next to him. It was her lunch break, too, and she was choosing to spend it with him. "You know," she began, very quietly, "you're not as awful as most of us pretend."

Henrik suppressed a grin at this remark. "Is that meant to be a compliment?" he asked her. He took her glare as confirmation. "What makes you say that? I could have been a mass murderer in my youth, and you would have no idea." He stroked Melissa's hand lightly, wondering how she would accept the reality of the situation. Would she even believe him? He wouldn't blame her if she didn't. The odds of them coming across each other like this were crazy.

"I can see in the way you look at her. She's still your baby sister, even though you haven't seen each other since you were kids," Jac concluded. She then said something that really threw him. "We're the same, you and me. We're looking for the same things for the same reasons."

"And what and why might that be?" he demanded, a smiled flashing across his face when Melissa gave a tiny smile in her sleep. She was dreaming. He hope it was a good dream. One of peace and comfort and happiness. Not like many of his. A lot of his dreams were dark memories of fending for himself while his dad was drunk. Of his aunt taking Melissa away. But she was married, and had two daughters who made her life happy. He had a brother-in-law and two nieces, it suddenly occurred to him.

"Family. Because we lost our families when we were so young." He gave her a puzzled look. She had forgotten that he knew little to nothing about her and her childhood. She looked at Melissa and said, "My mum abandoned me when I was twelve," she revealed.

"I'm sorry," he replied, putting all his sincerity into it. He knew what it was like to feel alone. When his mother died, and his sister was taken from him, he was alone. Or as good as. His father was not much company considering he had his head stuck in a bottle until it finally killed him, too. He looked around to Jac, and was surprised to see her crying. Silent tears. Why was this affecting her so much? He was the one who had just stumbled upon his little sister and Jac Naylor was the one crying. It was very strange.

"You know, you're the first person who has said that and I actually believed them," she told him, wiping her tears away aggressively with her sleeves. Hanssen sighed and gently put his arm around Jac's shoulders.

"Why are you so intent on making me get to know Melissa?" he asked her.

"Because I chose not to know my half-sister. I've seen her face once, and I told Michael to tell her I don't want to know. And I regret that," she confessed, as though it was a deadly sin. "It wasn't her fault. She didn't even know I existed until that day."

"It must have been hard," he told her softly. "Goodness knows, I'm having trouble with this," he admitted. "I'm actually trying to deduce whether she had a disagreement with our aunt. The last time I wrote to her, I asked where Melissa was, and she said she was living in Stockholm with her daughter." He looked at Jac, as if her thoughts on the matter might help him out. "That was in January 2011. Her youngest daughter is four. Does that make sense to you?"

"No, it doesn't," Jac agreed. "That means it was, at the very least, six years since they've spoken. Even I would not stop speaking to someone for that long unless they seriously offended me."

"And that says something, does it not, Miss Naylor?" he smirked into his sandwich. He didn't have to look around to picture the expression of resignation and sarcasm on her face. "No, I think Melissa and our aunt had a major dispute. Aunt Erika always adored Melissa, even when we were children. It must have been something massive for them to sever all ties."

Jac stared at Melissa for a moment. She could definitely see a resemblance, although Melissa's feature were softer than her brother's. Jac recognised some of what she saw – the way she did not look entirely peaceful, even in sleep, was all too similar to the way Henrik would pretend he was fine but, if one was to look close enough, the strain most definitely _was_ there. And it rarely ever left.

The way Melissa seemed to give a sense of vulnerability and strength simultaneously reminded her of the dents and nicks and compromised spots in Henrik's cast-iron armour and mask. He could terrify those working for him with one simple stare and yet some who looked deep enough saw the slight evidence of compassion or pain or fear in his eyes.

Melissa's eyes began to flutter open. Jac spotted it before Henrik, who was concentrating on his lunch. In a second, she nudged him too hard, straight in the ribs. She cringed internally when she realised what she'd done, but at least he saw his sister waking from her state of unconsciousness.

Jac stood up and, before she silently stalked out of the room to leave them to discuss what happens next, put her lips within an inch of Hanssen's ear and whispered the only advice she thought could help him.

"Be brave."

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><p><strong>Hope this is alright!<strong>

**Please review and tell what you thought!**

**Sarah x**


	5. Keep Her Close

**A/N: So THIS is was regular updating is. I'd almost forgotten. I'll try get back into my other stories after I get my dad's old house sorted and everything sold off. **

**Sarah x**

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><p>For a moment, Henrik just stared at his sister, very aware of the book resting on his lap. He picked it up eventually, and opened the cover to find the handwriting he had when he was a child. "You said your brother gave you this," he reminded her of what she had revealed to him. "Under what circumstances was it given to you?"<p>

Melissa gave him a confused look before she answered, the confusion still evident in her voice. "My aunt said that Henrik gave it to me the day she took me to live with her," she replied. "Why do you ask?"

"Melissa," he began carefully. His mind was frozen. How the hell was he meant to tell her that he was her brother? "My name is Henrik Hanssen. What was your maiden name?" he asked her quietly.

"Hanssen," she answered, the confusion in her eyes growing all the time. "My aunt let me keep my dad's name." She paused a second before continuing. "My brother was called Henrik," she mused. "We were separated by my aunt not long after my mother died. I was only four years old. When I asked her why when I was older, all she told me was that my dad was not capable of looking after himself, let alone a four-year-old."

"And did she ever say why she left m-" he stopped himself from saying "me." He believed that would only be unhelpful at this point. "Henrik," he corrected himself.

"She just said that he was to spent most of his time at boarding school, and he was old enough to look after himself. He never needed our father, she told me. He was overly mature for his age," she explained to Hanssen gently.

Henrik gave a smile at this. She was right, of course. He had never been childish. He had always been grown-up about things, even as a child. He held the book up to Melissa, so she could see it properly. "I gave you this," he told her gently, measuring her reaction cautiously. He half-expected her to throw a fit and scream at him to leave immediately. But she didn't. She just patiently waited for him to explain his statement. "Our mother died when I was nine years old. After about two months, it became clear that our father couldn't look after you. He agreed to let Aunt Erika take you and send me to boarding school in England, to take the burden off of his shoulders."

"You're Henrik. You're my brother," she realised slowly. He watched her absorbed the shock of it, still wondering how hostile she would be about it. "I moved here six years ago to search for you. Aunt Erika would not tell me a single thing about you. Uncle Alf told me you were in England but he did not know where exactly. So I came here. I wanted my big brother back," she told him tearfully.

The tears made Henrik feel guilty for not pushing his aunt for more information, something he could have used to find Melissa himself. "You always protected me," she smiled. "I remember," she laughed at the memory, "I remember, when one of your friends made fun of me because of my knotted hair, you threatened to hang him out the window by his ankles," she laughed.

Henrik laughed, too. He remembered this, too. A friend of his, Beck, had tugged Melissa's hair when she was four years old, just before their mother died, and said that it looked like disjointed rats' tails. Henrik had protected Melissa by suggesting that he create a contraption that would allow Beck to hang upside down out of the window for a prolonged period of time.

"I want that back, I guess," she whispered solemnly. "I want my big brother back."

"As long as you want me, I'll always be there," he assured her. This felt strange. Even though close to forty years had passed, it was as if their relationship had never been severed by those who thought they knew best. "You're my little sister," he reminded her, and he could feel tears in his eyes, which was a rarity for him. "You always have been, and you will never stop being my sister, no matter what."

He leaned over to her and pulled her into a tight cuddle. She still felt tiny in his arms, and he still felt a need to always defend her. He kissed her messy, curly hair gently. "You'll always be my Melissa," he whispered.

Jac walked in at that point, with the cordless phone. "Your husband wants to speak to you," Jac informed Melissa, handing her the phone. She gave Henrik a small smile and jerked to the door. He followed her out, and they waited for Melissa to finish on the phone.

Henrik heard his sister speaking to her husband, and he smiled at the excitement in her voice that a heart patient does not usually use. "Guess what?" she asked him, trying to stick to English because of her mental block of the language. "I found him," she grinned. "It's crazy, but he had to come down and deal with me on the Acute Admission Ward because nobody could understand our language." She paused while her husband talked, and her smile widened. She covered the transmitter f the phone and asked Jac, "Can my husband and daughter come and see me?"

"Yes, but don't over-exert yourself," Jac warned. She shared a slightly amused look with Hanssen at his sister's excitement. He had forgotten how Melissa could get so amped-up so quickly. She looked up at him. "It went down well, I take it," she smiled.

"Yes," he replied with a smile. "She apparently moved here after our uncle let slip I was living in England. She has been looking for me for six years."

"Did you find out why she hasn't spoken to Aunt Erika?" she asked him, remembering the name of the woman who seemed to be at the centre of the whole thing.

"Not yet," he told her. "This is enough excitement for one day, is it not?" he grinned. He could not help the smiling now. He couldn't believe how well this had gone. He had expected her to hate him of for there to be no connection left between them, but it was like they'd never parted. It was as if they'd never been forced to stop speaking. It was a relief, but it was also uplifting to know that she could still be his little sister and he was still loved by her.

"You're lucky," she enlightened him. To her surprise, there was no bitterness in the words, just an strange admiration. "You're lucky you had the sense to try. You're lucky that you're braver than I am." She found herself putting a hand on his arm. "This is going to work out," she reassured him. "I can feel it. From where I'm standing, it's like she's been missing you."

"I know I've missed her," he admitted. "Thank you for making me do this. I thought I was going to be a coward and let her leave not knowing who she is."

"No problem," Jac smiled slightly at him. She looked from him to Melissa and back again. "Keep her close and don't let her go," she advised him softly. With that, she walked out of the room. Henrik smiled, feeling as if something inside him had been put back where it should be after being taken so long ago. He listened Melissa's happy chatter and realised that this was going to be very interesting.

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><p><strong>Hope this is OK!<strong>

**Please review and tell me what you think!**

**Sarah x**


	6. Wanted

**A/N: Sorry for not updating sooner. We just got my dad's old house sorted out and then he died, which was a bit of a shock. But I hope you like this, because I'm not really sure of what I wrote.**

**Sarah x**

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><p>Henrik heard a knock at his office door. "Enter," he called. A man came in, about forty-five years old, with light brown hair and strikingly bright blue eyes.<p>

"Isak Nilsson," he smiled, holding out his hand. Henrik took it, and he suddenly felt very nervous. It occurred to him that, along with his sister, he also had a brother-in-law and two nieces. The prospect of a family was something he'd forgotten a long, long time ago.

His brother-in-law wore an open smile, as if he'd just found something he'd been searching for. Isak had that soft look about him. He wore the kind of clothes that made him come across as a modern man with modern values. "So you're the famous Henrik," he grinned. It was immediately office that Isak's English was far better than that of his wife, who struggled to keep speaking it when she was distracted. His accent was not as thick, and he seemed more at ease with it.

"Yes, I'm Henrik," he gave a tiny smile. "Forgive me," he added when he realised he wasn't really showing his happiness very well. "This is a shock to the system, as I'm sure you understand, and it's taking a little while to fully understand what happens next."

"Henrik," Isak sighed, sitting in the chair opposite Hanssen. "Melissa moved us all over here to find you, and I welcome you with open arms if you make my wife happy. And I'm sure you could use the company. As far as I know, you have very little family left, correct?"

"That is correct," he answered, acutely aware of his over-polite tone and rigidity.

"Well, if you want to, you're part of our family now. I've always supported Melissa in trying to find you. Between you and me, I've always been curious as to what you'd be like," he gave a chuckle.

Henrik noticed now that he was taking a liking to Isak. He was laid-back, inviting and he seemed to have a sense of humour. He was good enough for his little sister. Wow. He never thought he'd be thinking those words to himself. He never believed he would be able to approve or disapprove of his sister's choice of partner.

"May I ask you a question?" Henrik asked politely.

"Fire away, my friend," Isak smiled.

"What did Melissa and Erika fall out over?" he asked his brother-in-law. "I wrote to Erika and she said that Melissa was living in Stockholm with Evelina. She mentioned nothing of the UK, you or Siri," he explained.

"Melissa started to resist Erika," Isak sighed. "The woman was paranoid about me. She thought I was going to ruin Melissa's life, and I was too relaxed, all the rest of it. She would avoid the question if she was asked about you, your father or why Melissa was adopted and you ignored. Melissa got tired of it. She moved to Stockholm with Evelina, and we lived separately only for a few months until she found some trace of you to find. I don't think they've spoke since we left Sweden," he finished

"And are you happy here?"  
>"Very," Isak smiled. "We both have jobs, we have a lovely home and two beautiful daughters. We have plenty of everything we need, and now we've tracked you down, we have all the family we ever wanted. If you want to be a part of it, of course. Nobody is going to force you."<p>

"What do you do for a living?" Henrik enquired, genuinely interested.

Isak looked a little uncomfortable at this, and he knew he'd touched a nerve. "This is what started Erika off. Because I wasn't high-ranking or well-paid when we lived in Sweden. I was only a very junior welder. Then we moved here, and in the last six years, I've shot up. Welder, fabricator, mechanical engineer, car mechanic. It all overlapped. Now I'm Engineering Manager and I earn more than enough to provide for my family. But Melissa wishes to work herself, and I have no issues with that," he said.

"And what do you want from me? Do you want me as part of Melissa's life? Do you want me in _your_ life, and your daughters'?" Hanssen continued, and this was beginning to feel like an interrogation. He just wanted to know where he stood. He wanted to know if he was welcome. He was so used to being rejected and let down by his family that he began to doubt what they wanted.

"Come with me," Isak ordered him. Henrik just stared at him, wondering what he was doing. But he eventually stood up and followed him back up to Darwin. From the main ward, he could see his nieces. One was only small, one was in her early teens, but both were very pretty. Beautiful, even. "What do you see?"

"I see a family," Henrik answered simply. "A happy family," he added thoughtfully. "I don't want to disrupt that. I don't want to upset the balance you have, or confuse your children."

"It's not just any family, Henrik," Isak contradicted him. "It's _your_ family. Evelina knows about you, and she is fourteen. She's old enough to understand. She's even helped look for you. Siri is very young still, but she knows we are looking for someone important."

"He's right," a female voice said. Henrik turned to his left and found the petite figure of Jac Naylor at his side yet again. "I've been able to hear them for the past half an hour. The oldest one is all excited, and the youngest's been giggling. They want to know you." He felt her small hand on his arm, and she continued, "Go in and talk to them, at least. You're never going to know if you never even try. That was my mistake. Don't you make the same one."

He looked down into her eyes and saw rare, raw sincerity. And he knew she was right. He couldn't throw the chance away like that. It wasn't fair on Melissa, for a start. All those years of unending effort could not go to waste just because he was frightened.

Isak opened the door and gestured for Hanssen to walk through it. Jac nodded, but he felt is feet rooted to the floor. He couldn't move. So Jac did what only Jac would dare do – she pushed him gently forward so he could walk again. The first thing he saw was Melissa's smile, and he knew he was doing the right thing here.

Immediately, the oldest girl stood up, her thick brown curls flying away behind her. Hanssen held out his hand for her to shake, but she pushed it away. A moment of dread hit him as he wondered if his oldest niece was angry at him for his years and years of absence in her life. He wouldn't be able to blame her. She wasn't to know what an utter mess his family turned into the second they lost his mother.

He noticed she, like him, was really quite tall, and slimly built. Her eyes were like his, too. Deep and dark against her quite pale skin. There would be no doubt there were related.

That dread left when she pulled him into a hug. A hug so tight he didn't think the tall, skinny fourteen-year-old was capable of such force. What surprised him more was that he actually responded, his arms wrapped tight around her, just glad he was being accepted by her. He knew Melissa and Isak accepted him already. He had worried about Evelina in particular. Teenagers were temperamental at the best of times, even more so when they had their little world, their personal universe, messed with.

"I'm Evelina," she said quietly into his ear. "Thank God we've found you."

He held on to her tightly, and realised he was wanted here. They'd spent years looking for him and he'd never known it. He'd sat here and tried to forget while Melissa had done the complete opposite. "I'm Henrik," he whispered back. "Thank God you found me."

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><p><strong>Hope you like it!<br>Please leave a review and tell me what you think!  
>Sarah x<strong>


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